XXI - It's Called the GOP for a Reason
Chapter Twenty One
It's Called the GOP for a Reason
It's Called the GOP for a Reason
Extract from: Sinners, Senators and Salvation - The Democrats 1880-1930
By: Harry Sanders, Liberty University Press, 1987
President Boies second election was considerably less dramatic and less controversial than his first. The Prohibition Party and the People’s Party both made a point of not dying off and whilst America was a long was from having the sort of multi-party system that was emerging in the United Kingdom, the two party duopoly was clearly fading. In spite of this, the 1896 electoral college was almost entirely held by Democrats and Republicans, with only South Carolina slipping to a third party. The People’s Party fully endorsed Boies and Bryan for reelection. Whilst their core demographic might have been somewhat to the left of the populist president, he was nonetheless at least passably progressive and had pursued the exact kind of policies that the People’s Party hoped for. Unionisation became legal across the union and had been made much easier, with increased restrictions on union-busting. Women had gained the vote in California, Olympia and Lakota with Presidential support whilst a farmer relief fund was set up to bail out and invest in those rural regions in danger of economic collapse. The “metal question” of whether to move the US from a Gold to a Silver standard or to move to a fiat currency was largely solved by the implementation of Bimetallism, in which both Gold and Silver were used to back up the price of the dollar. It was a compromise but it was People’s Party policy as well as a move that appeased many Democrats and Republicans. Both the People's party and the Democrats (at least in the North) were happy to accept a Democratic/People’s fusion ticket.
In historical rankings of US presidents, Boies generally falls somewhere within the lower end of the top 10.
The Prohibition Party meanwhile decided to kick its efforts into overdrive. Whilst the conservative Christian party only won a single state, they were able to increase their vote share massively as both the Dems and the GOP shied away from “dry politics” and the banning of alcohol. Again, the Prohibitionists endorsed Wayne Wheeler, the fast talking lawyer who had put them on the national stage four years prior. Whilst in 1892 Wheelers goal had been to market his party as more modern, urban and slick than the stuffy old group of ministers it represented, now he sought to integrate the fire and brimstone charm of the preachers who supported it across the south. In large rallies that had more in common with sermons than the average political speech, Wheeler and his agents stood in front of choirs, rallied the people in the name of the lord, performed faith healings, anything and everything they knew that would inspire and win the affection of the simple, pious American people. Their great victory came with a series of Democratic endorsements and defections. Whilst they remained a minuscule force in Congress (having won 2 House seats in the 1894 Midterms and then another 2 in 1896) they earned the loyalty of many southern Democrats and even one or two northern ones. The greatest boon came as the Roosevelt Family of New York, already divided between Republican and Democratic Branches, split again as a large group of the Democratic side embraced the Prohibitionists, angered at the new, People’s influenced Democratic leadership. James Roosevelt Snr, a businessman and President of the Southern Railway Security Company, endorsed the Prohibitionists publically and would later move his family to Virginia and become a major party donor, his young sons helping out on the campaign trail. They were joined by many loyalists of ex-President Grover Cleveland who remained bitter at the “betrayal” that had removed him from the running four years prior.
For the Republicans, William McKinley seemed as good as it got. The Party was, ironically to later analysts, terrified of a split as some more conservative Republicans were looking to a coalition with the Prohibitionists as others believed a move to the Left would allow them to split the Dem/Pop fusion ticket and win big by cornering both the Northern and Southern vote. McKinley’s choice of New York Governor Teddy Roosevelt Jr as his running mate was wise but it is worth remembering that, as of 1896, Teddy was not yet the ever-popular war hero that he would become. When the people went to vote they opted for the safe, firm and warm hand on the wheel, satisfied with a comfortable status quo. In the end, it came to nought as the popular Boies won over the North and South in what many called a landslide. The Democrats swept across their traditional southern base, picked up all those states that had voted People's Party in 1892 and stole from the Republicans the states of Pennslyvania, Michigan, California, New York, Lakota and more. The Republicans lost their foothold on the West Coast and were pushed increasingly into the North Atlantic Coastal states, battered by Boies' new coalition. Wheeler, for his part, picked up South Carolina but failed to regain North Carolina and Alabama as he had four years prior.
1896 Election Results:
Boies/Bryan - Democratic/People's
341 Electors - 7,301,982 Votes
McKinley/Roosevelt - Republican
124 Electors - 5,673,211 Votes
Wheeler/McDonnel - Prohibition
9 Electors - 1,399,125 Votes
Boies second term continued as the first had, with notably more foreign entanglements. The Spanish War escalated his approval ratings from the middling 65% to a towering 80%. He built on this by overseeing a reform of the tarriff and immigration systems, raising the former and liberalising the later. The introduction of The United States Emergency Medical Fund (USEMF) was an extremely expensive but extremely popular policy that allowed Americans access to funds to pay for any life saving medical treatments that they could not afford. The states Nonetheless, there was tension. Boies’ VP, William Jennings Bryan, was a populist, People’s endorsed progressive like the President but was also a keen supporter of Prohibition. He and the president clashed on the issue time and time again and, when the President vetoed a prohibition bill in 1899, the feud went public as Bryan railed against the decision in a New York Times editorial. It is hard to overestimate the confidence with which the Dems approached the 1900 election; their President had just won a successful war, they controlled both the House and the Senate, it looked as if they would win the endorsement not only of the Populists but of the Prohibitionists too as Bryan, the expected and all but confirmed Democratic candidate, had made his commitment to the ban of alcohol sales known time and time again. When the President and the VP split, however, their plans were thrown into disarray. Boies, outraged, refused to endorse his one-time friend and instead rallied Northern Democrats against him, hoping for an inoffensive but anti-Prohibition compromise candidate to emerge as an alternative. He found this candidate in admiral George Dewey, a somewhat hapless war hero who had distinguished himself in the Spanish War. Whilst Dewey was a national hero and clearly aligned with the Northern Dems, he had little knowledge of political operation and a series of gaffs turned what could have been a quick and easy coup into a bitter fight. When the Democratic Primaries began, they did so in great controversy. Gone was the comfortable, all popular VP coronation, now there was a bitter three way fight between Bryan, Dewey and a new contender as the Southern Democrats rallied around Adlai Stevenson who not only had a proven record of supporting the Dixiecrats in office but who had been a key ally of Cleveland, winning over his supporters.
It was all the Republicans could do from squealing with glee, their doom and gloom predictions of the year prior which might have seen a three party ticket banishing them from the White House for another four years, now they had a divided and chaotic opposition. After the inglorious defeat of McKinley a few years prior, the Republicans opted instead for Thomas Reed, dubbed “Czar Reed” by his detractors. Reed was a party man through and through, having served as Speaker and later Minority Leader of the House. During his tenure, Reed ruled with an iron rod and enforced the party line harder than any other. He was, probably, the most powerful Speaker of the House in American history and his access to the Presidential ballot came easily. Whilst he didn’t like the man at all¸ the choice of Teddy Roosevelt as VP candidate was obvious. Roosevelt had experience, having been McKinley's VP candidate four years prior and, with his reputation as a beloved national war hero, successful governor and larger-than life figure, Teddy was the only way to go. It is often said that Roosevelt didn’t run for the Presidency himself only because he considered himself too young, too inexperienced and, in his own words “too damn foolhardy. I shall need a few words in lower office so that I might be humbled by the appropriately crushing weight of responsibility.”
TB Reed was a Republican Hero, if a somewhat controvertial one.
As the Democrats feuded and feuded and feuded, the Convention rolled around with no clear candidate at the fore. First, Bryan had a comfortable lead, then Stevenson pulled ahead before the President’s personal endorsement pushed Admiral Dewey to the fore. In the end, a wish to counter Roosevelts war hero persona and the personal influence of Boies led to the selection of Dewey as the official Democratic candidate. The outrage and division that followed threatened to break the party as many delegates stormed out. Stevenson and a large coalition of southern Democrats came together with the Prohibitionists to run their own fusion campaign, meanwhile Bryan who had been a hero of the Populists for some time, fought an equally difficult battle for the People’s Party nomination (which he eventually won) and branded himself the “Popular Democratic” candidate.
When election day came, the three disparate wings of the Democrats were going up against a united, powerful and popular republican ticket. The results weren’t hard to predict as the Republicans took every state bar Texas and Michigan (which went to Bryant), New York (which went to Dewey) and the Deep South (which went to Stevenson).
US Presidential Election Results 1900
Reed/Roosevelt - Republican
301 Electors - 6,788,902 Votes
Stevenson/Tree - "Prohibition" Democratic
78 Electors - 1,985,811 Votes
Dewey/Davis - "Rump" Democratic
36 Electors - 3,521,476 Votes
Bryan/Hearst - "Popular" Democratic
29 Electors - 3,523,830 Votes
The three way split of the Democrats was never fully healed and the party split would end up being permanent. Whilst the vast majority rebel Senators, Congressmen, Governors and other democratic operators came back to the “mainstream” party, a handful of Southern Democrats refused to sit with their northern brethren in the House or Senate and their informal arrangement with the Prohibition Party eventually evolved into the “Christian Coalition”. Meanwhile, Bryan and a group of loyalists became a wholesale part of the Populists who, now separated from the Democrats and seeking to win over Liberal Republican support in the West, rebranded themselves “the Progressive Party”. Overnight, America had gone from a two party system to a four party one as the towering strength fo the Republicans and wounded the pride of the Democrats were joined by the upstart Progressives and bitter Christian Coalition. Going into the 1900 elections the Populists had 12 Congressmen and 4 Senators, they won one more seat in each house bringing the total to 13 and 5 respectively whilst later defections from the liberal wings of both the Democrats and Republics would help to swell this number. They also carried over the Governors of Idaho, Nebraska and Kansas who had all been Democratic-Populist swing voters and chose the new Progressive party over the Rump Dems. The Prohibitionists meanwhile had no seats in Congress at all circa 1899 but won two of South Carolina's House of Representatives seats in 1900 as well as 1 each from Virginia and Flordia and a Senator in Utah. The rump Democrats would not win back the White House for many years and the diagnosis of President Reed with Brights Disease in late 1901 would...
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/empress-cixi-of-china631.jpg)
